Facts You Didn't Know About Texas

30 Things You Didn’t Know About Texas

The siege at the Alamo was just the beginning. After Mexican General Santa Ana defeated the Texans in that historic battle, a dramatic and brutal conflict ensued that put the mettle of everyday Texans to the test. Texas Rising, a new series premiering on the History channel on May 25th, tells the story of the fight that followed the Alamo, and how that period came to define what we think of as Texas today. Texas Rising is about a chapter of Texas history that’s little-understood outside of Texas itself. Here are 30 more facts about Texas that will surprise you.

Texas is home to the fastest road in America

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In 2012, a 40-mile stretch of Texas State Highway 130 between Austin and San Antonio got a new speed limit — 85 miles per hour, the highest speed limit in America. The road was intended as a cars-only alternative to Interstate 35, which became overrun with trucks in the wake of the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s.

Texas is home to one of the original outlaw biker gangs

The Bandidos biker gang was one of the two groups involved in the recent shootout in Waco, Texas which left nine people dead. The Bandidos are one of the largest biker gangs in the United States, and were founded in Texas in the 1960s. Along with the Hell’s Angels and the Pagans, they are the primary outlaw biker gangs currently active in the United States. Their rivals in the Waco incident, the Cossacks, were also founded in Texas several years later, but the Bandidos consider Texas to be their turf.

Texas uses its own power grid, separate from the other two in the U.S. that power the East and West coasts.

Texas’ electricity is distributed by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas — ERCOT. ERCOT is beyond the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission, unlike the other regional utilities in the United States.

Fighting wildfires has cost the state of Texas up to $1 million a day.

Texas often experiences wildfires in the late summer and early fall, and 2011 was a particularly brutal season. Recent years have brought more regular drought conditions, and the cost of fighting wildfires reached $1 million per day during October 2011. The costs are shared among state and federal agencies.

"Old Sparky" still works

The Electric Chair that put 361 prisoners to death in the Huntsville, Texas prison between 1924 and 1964 still exists — and is still in working condition. Although housed in a museum, if it were plugged in, it would still function.

Texas seceded from the Union – to join the Confederacy

When Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, it did not return to its previous independent status, but rather joined the Confederacy in the fight for secession that was the Civil War. Over 200,000 slaves were held in Texas at the time of secession.

Texas is home to 5 historic lighthouses

Most people associate lighthouses with Maine, but Texas was once home to a network of marine beacons, built between 1811 and 1939, that ran along the Gulf coast. Today, only five of the original 90 still stand.

“Y’all” has its origins in Scotland and Ireland

The most Texan of all words has its origins in the expression “ye aw,” meaning “you all” and used by both Irish and Scottish immigrants to the United States. In fact, “ye aw” is used in contemporary Scots, the language indigenous to Scotland, to this very day.

Some Texans will break the law to get close to their state flower

Texas bluebonnets bloom for a short period in the early spring, and Texans’ eagerness to get photo ops among their state flower has led to mass acts of illegal trespassing on private property. Social media has made the rush for photos even more widespread, leading some property owners to enact measures to protect their fields from being trampled by kids and their camera-toting parents.

Famous Texan Willie Nelson released a special album to pay off taxes owed to the government.

In 1990, Willie Nelson received a bill for unpaid back taxes from the IRS totaling $16.7 million. The agency ultimately put liens on his property and possessions. By 1993, Nelson had settled his debt with the IRS for a rumoured $9 million, part of which was paid by sharing the proceeds from a double-album he released at the time, The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?

Willie Nelson later made an H&R Block ad poking fun at his tax troubles that ran during the Super Bowl in 2003.

A decade after Willie settled with the IRS, tax advisors H&R Block ran a Super Bowl ad that poked fun at his questionable financial decision-making. Nelson was riding high at the time on his numerous Grammy nominations for his album “The Great Divide.”

This may be the year that college kids can bring guns to class in Texas

A law allowing “campus carry” — the carrying of concealed guns on college campuses — has passed a House panel and now awaits approval by a scheduling committee before proceeding to a vote. The proposal has received criticism from university officials over concerns that concealed weapons will lead to an increase in self-inflicted accidental wounds.

King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island

King Ranch is the second-largest ranch in the world (the largest is located in Australia), with a total area of 1,289 square miles. The state of Rhode Island is 1,214 square miles. The ranch was founded in 1853, and continues to operate today as a diversified private concern that includes agribusiness, cattle ranching and tourism.

Texas barbecued brisket originated with Jewish immigrants.

Although most historians trace the history of Texas-style barbecue to European immigrants in Central Texas at the turn of the 19th century, there’s no evidence of brisket — the trademark cut of Texas barbecue — being sold anywhere before the 1950s, with the exception of kosher delis in Greenville and El Paso.

Texas hold’ em was just “hold’em” until it arrived in Vegas

Texas hold’ em poker is largely responsible for the massive success of online poker tournaments, but until the 1960s, it was only played in Texas, and was known simply as “hold ’em.” Texas hold ’em was introduced in Las Vegas for the first time at the Golden Nugget, a downtown casino, in 1967. It proved such a hit that two years later a Texas hold 'em tournament was held at the Dune casino right on the Strip, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Texas Rangers protected civilians escaping Santa Ana’s army during the battle of the Alamo.

The Texas Rangers were first state law enforcement agency in the American territories, and they played a wide variety of roles, from protecting settlers from raids by native groups to enforcing order in towns. One of the lesser-known ways that they served was by covering retreating civilians who were escaping General Santa Ana’s army during the “Runaway Scrape,” a period in early 1836 when the Mexican army swept northward through Texas in an effort to gain control over the territory. Moreover, members of the Texas Rangers died in great number in defense of the Alamo.

The Colt pistol owes its fame and reputation to the Texas Rangers

Although Texas Rangers used whatever weaponry was available to them, they came to favor Colt pistols made in Boston. Revolvers were much more efficient than rifles, given their automatic reload. The Walker Colt was an improved model on the original Colt .36, based on improvements suggested by a Texas Ranger named Samuel H. Walker.

The deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history happened in Texas.

On September 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall on the island city of Galveston, 40 miles south of Houston. Weather reports had downplayed the risk posed by the storm, so few residents evacuated. As a result, an estimated 8,000 people died. By comparison, 1,833 people were reported dead as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Texas is known for its oil refineries, but it’s also one of the world’s largest wind energy producers.

In 2006, E.ON Climate and Renewables completed work on a wind farm in Roscoe, Texas that is the largest in the United States, and among the largest in the world. The Roscoe wind farm covers nearly 100,000 acres — several times the size of Manhattan. The state of Texas produces an estimated 8,500 megawatts of wind power.

The world’s largest rattlesnake roundup is held every year in Sweetwater, Texas.

Sweetwater, Texas hosts an annual rattlesnake roundup, where rattlesnakes are hunted off area farms and brought to a fairground site where a festival is held. Snakes are displayed, used for spectator games and often ultimately killed for snakeskin. The tradition dates back to the 1960s, when area farmers asked a local group to begin rounding up rattlesnakes off their farms as a public service.

The term “maverick” is derived from the name of a prominent early Texan.

Samuel A. Maverick (1803-1870) was an early Texas lawyer and rancher who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He is said to have refused to brand his cattle, which was seen as an act of independent-mindedness. He was not the only Maverick to have a lasting impact on the English language; his grandson, Texas Congressman Maury Maverick, coined the term “gobbledygook.”

Dr Pepper is a Texas specialty

Dr Pepper (no period after the Dr) was first made in Waco, Texas in 1885. The period was removed after the “Dr” to avoid any confusion about the drink’s actual medicinal qualities. Dr Pepper was bottled in nearby Dublin, Texas from 1891 until 2012. Today Dublin, Texas is home to a Dr Pepper museum.

Wes Anderson would not be Wes Anderson without Texas

Director Wes Anderson and actor Owen Wilson, both native Texans, met as college roommates at the University of Texas at Austin. They began a creative collaboration that has continued on and off ever since, starting with Anderson’s debut feature, Bottle Rocket, released in 1996. The film was based on a short film made by Anderson, and the Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke.

Rodeos were once seasonal work for ranch-hands

In the late nineteenth century, “Wild West shows” had become popular entertainment, and ranch hands with good steer roping and riding skills would perform in them for income during the off-season from ranching. Before Wild West shows, rodeos often took place at annual community gatherings where ranch-hands would show off their roping skills to each other.

The letters G.T.T. used to mean something

The letters “G.T.T.” were 19th-century shorthand for “Gone to Texas.” People would paint the letters on the front doors of their homes before leaving town, often to escape debt or seek out fortune. “G.T.T.” became synonymous for leaving in search of greener pastures.

Austin, Texas is home to the world’s largest urban bat population

An estimated 1.5 million bats live under the Congress Avenue bridge between March and November, making it the world’s largest urban bat colony. Small crowds gather every day just before nightfall — wearing hats, if they’re reasonable — to watch the bats take wing for their nighttime feast of mosquitos. The bats winter over in Mexico.